I Can't Sing, written by Harry Hill, is wildly eccentric and often wonderfully
funny – as well as splendidly rude about Simon Cowell, says Charles
Spencer

It has long seemed to me that The X Factorrepresents almost everything that is revolting about modern Britain.

Both cruel and sentimental, it panders to the obsession with fame and celebrity that has become a kind of religion in our country and celebrates the emotional incontinence that has replaced the English stiff upper lip. It asks us to laugh at losers, feel warm and gooey about the winners and makes a fortune for Simon Cowell, surely one of the most odious public figures in Britain today.

But as I made my way to the Palladium for this new musical based on The X Factor, of which Cowell is one of the lead producers, I had a tiny flicker of hope in my heart. I Can’t Sing has been written by Harry Hill, a comedian of genius in my view, who in his wonderful television series TV Burp somehow turned telly dross into comic gold. Would he be capable of a similar trick of theatrical alchemy here?

The answer is a definite yes. The show is wildly eccentric and often wonderfully funny. It is also splendidly rude about Cowell himself. In one of the early scenes we see the sinister svengali getting out of his car, before belatedly realising he has forgotten something. He opens the door and sheepishly brings out his new baby. Full marks for topicality.

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Cowell’s decision to back a musical that sends him up so mercilessly – there is an astonishing final reveal about his true nature – either suggests he is less awful than he appears, or that he will go along with anything just so long as it makes him more money.

Like all Hill’s best work, I Can’t Sing mixes the surreal and the satirical. The heroine is an orphaned teenage waif who lives in a caravan under a flyover with her grandfather who is confined in an iron lung. Her only friend is a talking dog, but then she meets a ukulele-playing plumber and the two of them decide to find fame and fortune on The X Factor. It’s not exactly West Side Story, but the performers give it all they’ve got, the designs are spectacular and the whole delightfully bonkers show has a winning wit and warmth about it in Sean Foley’s constantly engaging production.

The songs by Steve Brown, with additional lyrics by Harry Hill, offer an exuberant pastiche of a huge range of styles. There is a hilarious rap number sung by a furious hunchback called Trevor Modo, as well as soaring power ballads for our heroine, including the title number in which, while protesting that she can’t sing, her voice swoops and soars to thrilling effect. The delightful Cynthia Erivo is an absolute joy in the role, at once vulnerable and plucky.

There is a cracking performance too from Nigel Harman as Cowell, his face gleaming with moisturiser and self-adoration. He comes over like a cross between a Bond villain and something nasty in the reptile house at London Zoo, and has a terrific swing number that put me in mind of Robbie Williams in a kitsch Las Vegas cabaret.

The show may be too raucous and vulgar for some, but I Can’t Sing strikes me as a big popular hit blessed with real heart and great theatrical panache.